Confessional Parties Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Confessional parties are parties organized around a shared religion. They can incorporate religious identity as an ethnic marker, socioeconomic agenda, or vehicle to advance an increased role for religion in the state. Although modernization theory predicted a decreasing relevance of religion, confessional parties continue to play an important role around the world. As a result, confessional parties are sometimes viewed as an anomaly and explained on an ad hoc basis, heavily emphasizing particular characteristics of faiths assumed to be resilient to reform (e.g., Catholicism and Islam). However, many recent scholars have instead treated confessional parties as explicable by a variety of social scientific theories—such as rational choice, social movement, and institutionalism—that apply to other aspects of sociopolitical life.

In Europe and Latin America, Christian Democratic parties are key actors; in South Asia, both Hindu and Islamic parties have eclipsed nationalist movements. In the Middle East, Islamic parties have participated extensively in the new electoral politics of the last two decades. Moreover, Lebanon and Iraq allocate political offices along sectarian lines, thus encouraging religious parties.

Since World War II (1939–1945), Christian Democratic parties have played a significant role in Europe, especially in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Historically holding a significant Catholic component, there are also now active Protestant elements in Christian Democratic parties. Generally speaking, the ideology of these parties is neither liberal nor socialist and instead focuses on solidarity based on a social reform agenda. Explanations of Christian Democracy range from primordialist accounts of a fixed Catholic identity to instrumentalist explanations that focus on the role of the Church or traditional elites, and to microeconomic rational choice explanations of party formation. In addition, Latin America (especially Chile, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Mexico) has Christian Democratic parties, although these are not as influential as in Europe.

Religious parties also play an important role in South Asia and the Middle East. In India’s 1991 elections, the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the largest opposition party in India and continued on a trajectory of electoral growth until it became the ruling party in 1999; it’s electoral fortunes were reversed slightly in 2004 and 2009 when the Indian congress made a comeback and the BJP returned to opposition. Islamic activism has also grown in the Middle East, and several Islamic parties have successfully contested elections throughout the region, including the 1991 interrupted ascension of the Islamic Salvation Front Algeria abrogated by a coup, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian national elections in 2006, and the main Islamist parties in Morocco and Jordan that operated as “loyal opposition” to the monarchies. This increased role in politics has led to the growth of literature on Islam and democracy, along with social movement literature explaining the moderating effect of political participation and accounts focusing more on institutions.

However, Lebanon is perhaps the best example of confessional parties due to the confessional underpinnings of the overall political system. The confessional allocation of parliamentary seats was institutionalized as a result of the 1943 National Pact at a six to five Christian-Muslim ratio and revised to one to one by the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the civil war. As a result, parties are organized along sectarian lines. Before the civil war, a few parties were nominally cross-confessional drawing on different religions, such as the Communist Party (with a largely Shia base) and the Constitutional Bloc Party. However, the development of militias from existing party apparatuses further entrenched the confessional nature of political parties. As a result, today there are few cross-confessional parties. For example, the Progressive Socialist Party is largely Druze, and the Future Movement Party is mostly Sunni. General Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, which originally professed an anticonfessional agenda, has become a vehicle for advocating a Christian (largely Maronite) agenda. In addition, there are competing parties for some confessions. Among Maronites, the Lebanese Forces rival the Kataib (or Phlangist) from which it split. Similarly, Hezbollah is increasingly eclipsing the Amal Movement as the preeminent Shia party. Along a similar trajectory, political parties are organizing confessionally in postwar Iraq.

Bibliography:

El-Khazen, Farid. “Political Parties in Post-War Lebanon: Parties in Search of Partisans” Middle East Journal 57, no. 4 (Autumn 2003): 605–624.
Kalyvas, Stathis. The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Lust-Okar, Ellen. Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Mainwaring, Scott, and Timothy Scully, eds. Christian Democracy in Latin America: Electoral Competition and Regime Conflicts. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Schwedler, Jillian. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.